A "Body" of Writing: The Voice of Henriette Hardenberg

This essay introduces a nearly forgotten Expressionist poet, Henriette Hardenberg (1894-1993), whose work often focuses on the relationship between a subject and her "body." Using feminist philosopher Elizabeth Grosz's concept of a "body image," said to determine sexual identity, I conduct a series of close readings to show that Hardenberg's writing can be read in opposition to constructing such an image. Hardenberg, herself a dancer, represents the "body" as a space whose boundaries are fluid, perpetually in motion, so that the reader is unable to visualize it, and sexual identity can be recognized as, by definition, unstable. (CR)